Through an agile and flexible process, following the Horizon Europe cascade funding mechanism, ongoing NGI Research and Innovation Actions (RIAs) provide support to projects from outstanding academic researchers, hi-tech startups and SMEs.
Funding is allocated to projects using short research cycles targeting the most promising ideas. Each of the selected projects pursue their own objectives, while the NGI RIAs provide the programme logic and vision, technical support, coaching and mentoring, to ensure that projects contribute towards a significant advancement of research and innovation in the NGI initiative.
The focus is on advanced concepts and technologies that link to relevant use cases and that can have an impact on the market and society over all. Applications and services that innovate without a research component are not covered by this model.
NGI ENRICHERS
1st Call for Open Ideas and Challenges
The NGI Transatlantic Fellowship program is seeking to engage NGI Researchers and Innovators
Opening date: 1st February
Closing date: 31st March
Short description: The NGI Transatlantic Fellowship program is seeking to engage NGI Researchers and Innovators, including researchers with technical background, or Social Sciences and the Humanities (SSH) background, or from other multidisciplinary fields e.g. working at the intersection of social and natural sciences.
The program provides travel funding, living allowance (EUR 3.800 – for every full month of stay), and visa cost for visiting fellows from Europe, and supports both fellows and their hosts, with bootcamps, mentors, visibility, community building and more! Applicants can find general information on the fellowship programme on the European applicants – NGI Enrichers page.
The 1st Call for Open Ideas and Challenges will select up to 18 applicants. The selected applicants will spend 3-6 months in the US or Canada to collaborate with the Host organisations, enhancing knowledge-sharing and establishing long-term collaborations on NGI technologies, services, and standards.
Target participants:
The NGI Transatlantic Fellowship program is seeking to engage NGI Researchers and Innovators, including researchers with technical background, or Social Sciences and the Humanities (SSH) background, or from other multidisciplinary fields e.g. working at the intersection of social and natural sciences.
Visit: https://enrichers.ngi.eu
Apply: https://enrichers.ngi.eu/apply-here/
Contact for more info: https://enrichers.ngi.eu/contact/
NGI Zero Entrust
NGI ZERO ENTRUST 4th Open Call
Trustworthiness and data sovereignty
Opening date: 1st February
Closing date: 1st April 12:00 CET (noon)
Short description: We need a more resilient, trustworthy and open internet, empowering the end-users. Trust is only justified and sustainable if it the technology in question is up for the job, and is secure-by-design as well as trustworthy. Much of the software, services and devices does not measure up, and it is quite unlikely this will just improve by itself. NGI0 Entrust is designed to move beyond the status quo and create a virtuous cycle of innovation through free and open source software, libre hardware and open standards. If we want everyone to use and benefit from the internet to its full potential without holding back, the internet must be built on strong and transparent technologies that allow for permissionless innovation and are equally accessible to all.
Target participants: Independent researchers and developers to create powerful new technologies, and to help them put it in the hands of future generations as building blocks for a fair and democratic society and a sustainable and open economy that benefits all.
Visit: nlnet.nl/entrust
Apply: nlnet.nl/propose
Contact for more info: nlnet.nl/entrust
NGI Zero Core
NGI Zero Core 1st Open Call
We want a more resilient, trustworthy and open internet. We want to empower end-users. Given the speed at which the ‘twin transition’ is taking place, we need a greener internet and more sustainable services sooner rather than later. Neither will happen at global scale without protocol evolution, which — as the case of three decades of IPv6 introduction demonstrates — is extremely challenging. NGI0 Core is designed to push beyond the status quo and create a virtuous cycle of innovation through free and open source software, libre hardware and open standards. If we want everyone to use and benefit from the internet to its full potential without holding back, the internet must be built on strong and transparent technologies that allow for permissionless innovation and are equally accessible to all.
Opening date: 1st February 2023
Closing date: April 1st 2023 12:00 CET
Short description: We are looking for troubleshooters that help society tackle the ossification of the internet and other hard but very very important challenges, each of which has significant social and economic consequences. We need new ideas and disruptive core technologies, while at the same time evolving and growing existing technologies that are still enough future-proof. The project results become available under an open source license, so anyone can read and validate the source code, and anyone can use the code to create technology that fits their own purposes. The right to reuse and right to repair not only allow for unrestricted scrutiny and permissionless innovation, but also help to reduce e-waste. And the use of standards enables interoperability and redundancy in implementation to reduce the risk of compromise and failure.
We are seeking project proposals between 5.000 and 50.000 euro’s — with the possibility to scale them up if there is proven potential. Reliability, confidentiality, integrity, security, and resource efficiency should be the ‘new normal’ of the internet, something ordinary users should not have to worry about — users should be in control. So let’s make it happen.
Target participants: We assist independent researchers and developers to create powerful new technologies, and to help them put it in the hands of future generations as building blocks for a fair and democratic society and a sustainable and open economy that benefits all. Have a look at other NGI Zeroprogrammes to see the kind of efforts we mean, but don’t be afraid to send something completely different if you think you can contribute to the topic — it really is an open call.
Visit: nlnet.nl/core/
Apply: nlnet.nl/propose/
Contact for more info: nlnet.nl/core/
NGI TrustChain
NGI TrustChain 1st Open Call
Opening date: February 8th 2023, 12:00 CET
Closing date: April 10th 2023, 17:00 CEST
Short description: TrustChain project started in January 2023 to address the inherent challenges within the current centralised Internet architecture that is not transparent to the user, does not protect the privacy-by-default and does not scale well through 5 Open Calls and an overall budget of €8,775M.
€ 1,755,000 will be distributed in Open Call #1 among up to 15 projects along with free coaching and access to infrastructure. Trustworthy digital identities and data are the focus of this TrustChain Open Call 1 (OC1) on “Decentralised Digital Identity”.
How does it work: The evaluation process is composed of three phases:
- Phase 1: Admissibility & eligibility check
- Phase 2: Proposals evaluation
- Phase 3: Online interviews
Evaluation period will last until the end of May 2023. Up to 15 selected projects will participate for a duration of 9 months actively developing interoperable and sustainable digital identity management applications that are transparent and address the needs of the future decentralised internet.
As part of the TRUSTCHAIN action, experts in diverse fields will also provide to Third party innovators selected technology development guidance, working methodology as well as access to technical infrastructure, training in business model development and data related topics, coaching, mentoring, visibility and community building support.
First webinar to introduce the project and application procedure will take place on 27th of February.
The target audience of this call: The target Applicants of this call are developers, innovators, researchers, SMEs and entrepreneurs working on different NGI relevant topics and application domains at the intersection between the technical field ( e.g Software Engineering, Network Security, Semantic Web, Cryptography, Blockchain, Digital Twin, Blockchain Security, Digital Identity, Blockchain Protocol), the Social sciences and Humanities (e.g Social Innovation, not-for-profit sector, Social Entrepreneurship, public goods) as well as any others including economics, environment, art, design, which can contribute to NGI TRUSTCHAIN relevant vision.
Visit: trustchain.ngi.eu
Open call page: https://trustchain.ngi.eu/open-call-1/
Twitter: @NGI_TRUSTCHAIN
LinkedIn: @ngi-trustchain
Contact for more info: [email protected]
NGI Zero Review
NGI Zero Review Open Call
Supporting quality and maturity of digital commons.
Opening date: 1st August 2022
Closing date: 31st July 2025
Short description: NGI Zero Review is a three year support programme offering various targeted services to free and open source projects within the Next Generation Internet initiative.
Goal is to improve the quality and inclusiveness of these projects, and make them more sustainable where possible by supporting the most promising ideas to live up to high standards (sometimes called “walk the talk”) in terms of security, privacy, accessibility, open source licensing compliance, standardisation, etc.
Target participants: The NGI Zero Review program is open to grantees withing the NGI initiative. Available to free and open source projects if the project has received a grant from the Next Generation Internet initiative, and contributes to the vision of the Next Generation Internet.
Visit: nlnet.nl/NGI0/review/
Contact for more info: nlnet.nl/NGI0/review/
NGI OPENWEBSEARCH.EU
NGI OpenWebSearch.eu Open Call
Community Programme of OpenWebSearch.EU Project: 1st open call for the Third-Parties.
Opening date: 1st March 2023
Closing date: 28th April 2023
Short description:
OpenWebSearch.eu (GA 101070014) aims at building and piloting a legally compliant Open Web Index as a European infrastructure. The first OpenWebSearch.eu call asks for contributions in legally compliant data gathering and in identifying legal or economic aspects that enable or block the development and maintenance of an Open Web Index.
Third-party activities of OpenWebSearch.eu are driving forces of the Community Programme. OpenWebSearch.eu project calls for proposals to help building an open and independent Web-Index.
The first call consists of two tracks: Track 1: Conceptual studies on legal or economic aspects of Open Search.
Track 2: Technical approaches to legally compliant data acquisition considering societal constraints.
Candidate third-parties should address those topics which are closely related to the OpenWebSearch.eu project. They should aim at widening and enriching the existing R&D activities as well as suggesting new ones, complementary to the project goals and aims. The applicants can receive funding between 25,000 and 120,000 EUR for a funding period of up to 12 months.
Target participants: The call especially targets smaller companies (i.e., SMEs, start-ups), individual innovators, individual researchers or research teams (e.g., doctoral or post-doctoral researchers).
Eligible applicants are:
- Individuals who are citizens or residents of any EU Member State or any of the countries associated with Horizon Europe; or
- Organizations that are registered in any EU Member State or any of the countries associated with Horizon Europe.
Visit: www.openwebsearch.eu
Contact for more info: https://openwebsearch.eu/contact/